TRANSARA Annual Conference in Leipzig, May 15th-16th, 2025
Thinking about the adapted reuse of church buildings, some binary differentiations seem self-evident:
“Protestant churches are more easily used cooperatively because they are connected with a different understanding of sacrality than Catholic churches.”
“Secularization is connected with a continuing loss of sacred spaces.”
“In the cities, successful transformation is more likely because of a variety of stakeholders present.”
However, the work of the last years in the research group illustrates a complication of confessional, religious, and urban-rural binaries that initiated our comparative endeavor with the selection of the two research areas in East and West Germany.
Effects of minority-/majority-confession came into view as well as differences in building culture. Not only did the economic capital appear as a cross-sectional dimension, but also potential for tourism, engagement cultures, and guiding images of the church.
The conference aims to develop a more complex web of transformation paths and patterns and situate it in the European context. Emerging propositions from the inner-German ecumenical comparison will be discussed in relation to perspectives from academic research and experiences in church practice / religious heritage preservation in different parts of Europe.
Programme and registration: https://www.transara.uni-bonn.de/de/veranstaltungsseiten/transara-jahrestagung-2025